Memorial Service Audio Only |
On Sunday, May 3rd, 2020, at the age of seventy, after a glorious day of sun and friendship, Sonja Ahuja passed away at her home from Serous Uterine Cancer. To view a recording of Sonja's virtual memorial service CLICK HERE and wait for video to load.
Once it became clear that Sonja’s time to leave us was approaching, several women friends, along with Ashok, Thaytia, and Mequitta, gathered together via Zoom to sit with her and share our love with her. We did not realize this would be her final day.
As we each spoke, there were many commonalities and themes that emerged. While we were a small group given the number of people who love Sonja, we share these with you now hoping it gives you comfort to know that Sonja was conscious and able to hear and, in her words, “absorb” our love and appreciation for who she has been in our lives.
Main themes that were spoken in one way or another by everyone present were the themes of:
Gratitude to Sonja, for her wisdom, compassion, guidance, nurturing, generosity of spirit; for opening up our world; for abiding friendship sometimes of many years, sometimes of just a few, but always with immeasurable depth. The image of the circle is ever-present.
Creating connections, with her community, weaving those threads to create the fabric between her friends and others she knew, for personal and also professional reasons. Providing support: “Oh, yes, you can do this.”
Being grounded; being a listener as well as a questioner. Willingness to share talking about subjects so often uncomfortable for many people (as in the UU group Eliminating Racism) but also in one-to-one discussions. She could and would talk about everything. A lifelong seeker of truth and justice.
Incredible spirit, bigger than life. Calm and forgiving; loving and always wanting us to see each other and connect, treat other with kindness.
Courage, grace, and authenticity, as in her incredible “It’s all good” and “never feeling luckier or happier” in one of her recent email messages. She is showing us how to make this transition.
“It’s all good” is about everything even things that are not good, and she fully believed this.
A trust that the other person’s intentions were always good, so she didn’t have to watch her words.
Admiration for her devotion to Ashok and her daughters, for her family. Cannot imagine them without each other (Sonja and Ashok), they are one.
Ashok shared “She allowed me to be who I am with unconditional acceptance of me.” “You are me and you always have been and you always will be.”
Her love of flowers from tulips to the “lowly” dandelions. Sharing her love of art, love of literature and books, and words.
“A woman rich in a way I’d like to become rich, and in the short time I’ve known you I have grown rich.”
“A place in me where Sonja lived and will continue to live.”
To Sonja’s family: “You’ll never be alone. The support that you, Sonja, have developed throughout your life will show up for you.”
Message to her from Thaytia and Mequitta: Mama told us you are people I would like to be friends with even if I weren’t your mother, and that feeling is mutual. Both parents always taught them, and others, that “you’re not stuck; you just have to figure out how to get there, but you’re not stuck.”
“She will give you everything she has; her whole career is about giving to people.”
Thaytia shared her poem “Fat” that Sonja loved that included these lines: “…a back that bore more pain than was ever fair” and “a miracle of willpower, iron strength, and God’s grace.”
Lines from a poem by Ellen Bass, so applicable to Sonja: “…then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no vibrant eyes, and you say yes, I will take you, I will love you again…”
The unfairness of her going all too soon yet leaving us feeling humbled by seeing how someone can grasp [life, people] in the kindest, most honest, most thoughtful way; it gets to your soul and is so amazing. Too short a time but so grateful.
“My 911 call” for counsel, advice, answering a question.
“The incredible abundance of love and gratitude we all feel for you; you are alive in all of us forever. A connection that is not limited in any way.”
After close to two hours during which Sonja mostly had her eyes closed and occasionally waved her hand in agreement or acknowledgement, she herself ended the time together thanking us for this time together and with these words:
“I don’t have much stamina, am wallowing in the appreciation and the gratitude and I want to say that you all and each have opened up wide vistas for me to exist in and I am ever ever ever grateful for that. I continue to ride the wave, the wave of all of you and many others who are just holding me up and I will try to have more to communicate but for now this is where I am and just deeply steeped in the love and light that you all have shared and we’ll be here together.”
All those present said various “I love you’s” and Sonja answered: “Same back to you.”
Niyonu closed our time together by singing the word that summed it all up perfectly, “gratitude.”
Once it became clear that Sonja’s time to leave us was approaching, several women friends, along with Ashok, Thaytia, and Mequitta, gathered together via Zoom to sit with her and share our love with her. We did not realize this would be her final day.
As we each spoke, there were many commonalities and themes that emerged. While we were a small group given the number of people who love Sonja, we share these with you now hoping it gives you comfort to know that Sonja was conscious and able to hear and, in her words, “absorb” our love and appreciation for who she has been in our lives.
Main themes that were spoken in one way or another by everyone present were the themes of:
Gratitude to Sonja, for her wisdom, compassion, guidance, nurturing, generosity of spirit; for opening up our world; for abiding friendship sometimes of many years, sometimes of just a few, but always with immeasurable depth. The image of the circle is ever-present.
Creating connections, with her community, weaving those threads to create the fabric between her friends and others she knew, for personal and also professional reasons. Providing support: “Oh, yes, you can do this.”
Being grounded; being a listener as well as a questioner. Willingness to share talking about subjects so often uncomfortable for many people (as in the UU group Eliminating Racism) but also in one-to-one discussions. She could and would talk about everything. A lifelong seeker of truth and justice.
Incredible spirit, bigger than life. Calm and forgiving; loving and always wanting us to see each other and connect, treat other with kindness.
Courage, grace, and authenticity, as in her incredible “It’s all good” and “never feeling luckier or happier” in one of her recent email messages. She is showing us how to make this transition.
“It’s all good” is about everything even things that are not good, and she fully believed this.
A trust that the other person’s intentions were always good, so she didn’t have to watch her words.
Admiration for her devotion to Ashok and her daughters, for her family. Cannot imagine them without each other (Sonja and Ashok), they are one.
Ashok shared “She allowed me to be who I am with unconditional acceptance of me.” “You are me and you always have been and you always will be.”
Her love of flowers from tulips to the “lowly” dandelions. Sharing her love of art, love of literature and books, and words.
“A woman rich in a way I’d like to become rich, and in the short time I’ve known you I have grown rich.”
“A place in me where Sonja lived and will continue to live.”
To Sonja’s family: “You’ll never be alone. The support that you, Sonja, have developed throughout your life will show up for you.”
Message to her from Thaytia and Mequitta: Mama told us you are people I would like to be friends with even if I weren’t your mother, and that feeling is mutual. Both parents always taught them, and others, that “you’re not stuck; you just have to figure out how to get there, but you’re not stuck.”
“She will give you everything she has; her whole career is about giving to people.”
Thaytia shared her poem “Fat” that Sonja loved that included these lines: “…a back that bore more pain than was ever fair” and “a miracle of willpower, iron strength, and God’s grace.”
Lines from a poem by Ellen Bass, so applicable to Sonja: “…then you hold life like a face between your palms, a plain face, no charming smile, no vibrant eyes, and you say yes, I will take you, I will love you again…”
The unfairness of her going all too soon yet leaving us feeling humbled by seeing how someone can grasp [life, people] in the kindest, most honest, most thoughtful way; it gets to your soul and is so amazing. Too short a time but so grateful.
“My 911 call” for counsel, advice, answering a question.
“The incredible abundance of love and gratitude we all feel for you; you are alive in all of us forever. A connection that is not limited in any way.”
After close to two hours during which Sonja mostly had her eyes closed and occasionally waved her hand in agreement or acknowledgement, she herself ended the time together thanking us for this time together and with these words:
“I don’t have much stamina, am wallowing in the appreciation and the gratitude and I want to say that you all and each have opened up wide vistas for me to exist in and I am ever ever ever grateful for that. I continue to ride the wave, the wave of all of you and many others who are just holding me up and I will try to have more to communicate but for now this is where I am and just deeply steeped in the love and light that you all have shared and we’ll be here together.”
All those present said various “I love you’s” and Sonja answered: “Same back to you.”
Niyonu closed our time together by singing the word that summed it all up perfectly, “gratitude.”